Pitch a vision to lure an angel

No matter what advice an entrepreneur has had on pitching, someone in the audience will disagree as Pascale Helyar-Moray found when she pitched to angel investors last week.

Asking for capital from the Innovation Bay network, the founder of online customised jewellery start-up StyleRocks had in mind the advice to “hold a little bit of information back. Get them wanting to know more.”

But some in the audience weren’t happy. During questions, Ms Helyar-Moray declined to give revenue figures or say what equity stake was on the table. “I don’t like to talk about financials and equity levels in a room full of investors,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of tyre kickers. If you’re genuinely serious about me and StyleRocks . . . you will come and talk to me afterwards. Also I have existing shareholders I need to protect.”

While some feedback said she was “naive” or “evasive”, others said “it was absolutely the right thing to do”.

“It’s a personal preference,” she said. “There’s always going to be people who that’s all they want to know. If that’s the case, we’re probably not the best cultural fit.”

Pitching for start-up capital can be unnerving. Investors have as many different preferences as company founders have approaches. One common outcome, however, is that with each pitch, there is something to learn. At the quarterly Innovation Bay dinners, four early-stage companies are chosen from video applications to pitch. The other three in Ms Helyar-Moray’s cohort came away with their own lessons.

David Wei of Venuemob, a web-based platform to help book events, found he was not asking for enough; some said his request for $400,000 was insufficient to grow quickly enough to deter competitors. “We are probably going to have a think about the implications of that,” he said. “Maybe we could raise money now and maybe raise more later.”

Mr Wei was happy with his performance in the Q&A session. “All the questions we anticipated,” he said. “We worked as a team to come up with every single question we thought might be asked.”

This strategy would have been helpful for Michael Shimmins of educational software maker Lexim, who was asked a question about the defensibility of the software. “I hadn’t been asked that before,” he said.

But Mr Shimmins sees every pitch as a chance to “socialise” the idea. Investors have often assumed that it would be too expensive and unlikely that universities and schools would switch products.

“So up front in the [slide] deck I talk almost immediately about the high levels of dissatisfaction in the user base,” he said. “When we get that up front people start listening a little bit more, so they can focus more on what I’m saying than chewing their concerns over.”

The founder of WeTeachMe, a website that links teachers with students, Kym Huynh was glad he “struck a chord” with the audience.

Like Ms Helyar-Moray, he was told more information on financial details would have improved his pitch. But he is optimistic. “I never approach pitching expecting people to write the cheque,” he said. “I see pitches as a conduit for exploring future relationships.”

Ms Helyar-Moray says she won’t be changing her approach on financial details but feels her articulation of her global ambitions can be clearer. “I needed to have perhaps less text on that last slide and just one bullet point: help us go global.”